From: Grand Epopt Feotus <68954@brahms.udel.edu>
I comprehend my own brand of crypto/cyber-anarchy. I personally do not go for any of the regulations or "protections" that have been proposed so far. IMO, if you want to put your machine on the net, take your chances. It's getting very cheap to set up a node now, and if I choose to do so I would not take kindly to any restrictions upon my activity, be it legal, or illegal even.
ok, suppose that every internet company decided that they would install `fingerprint keyboards' and require use of them by users. these keyboards sense your fingerprints as you type on the keyboard and can be used to reject users not authorized to use a given account. they simply tell people who do not want to use the system, `tough luck'. in a sense, this is something like how our social security system and drivers licensing works today. there are few (legal) alternatives to them. so, how do you get a connection to this net? you are probably going to propose `starting a new net without these draconian restrictions'. but what you have done is propose a new set of rules -- `we don't need no stinkin rules'. how is your system going to deal with sites that corrupt passed mail? that harbor hackers and crackers? it really amazes me guys, but if you think the internet is some kind of anarchy right now,you are completely mistaken. you agree to a set of rules when you join the net. those rules are set by your provider. you agree not to corrupt mail you forward, don't mailbomb usenet, etc. currently there are many `unspoken rules' -- but it makes sense for them to be codified so that everyone understands what they can expect of each other. there is no guarantee of your access to the current net. doesn't that seem kind of fragile? you think you don't have to have any faith? it seems you have a lot of faith you will always be able to get a connection to the internet. why not try to set up a system or organization that is committed to formalizing the rights and expectations of users on the net and specifying what constitutes `basic access'?
Myself, I would much rather take the lumps of some abuse, rather than have ANY regualtion put on my usage of my personal node, or interaction between connected nodes.
ok, so i set up a node that randomly corrupts all the mail that i pass through my site. i mailbomb the cypherpunks list and all the remailers. how do you deal with it? you send shrieking mail to all my upstream site providers asking them to yank me. what if i have bribed them all very lucratively? what if they decide that you don't pay enough, so they are going to yank you instead? (not worth the hassle of your insults, after all) what if i have dozens of accounts on different public domain sites? i seem to be going in circles here.
This makes room for alot of abuse, I admit that, but I just don't see how all these Bill-O-CyberRights stuff, and CyberKommunity will work when your dealing with a space that has no boundary. This is a metric space, whos distances are measured in connectivity, there are no real boundaries as the are easily breached and morphed.
excuse me, mr. idealist, but you live in a world that no one would recognize as their own. cyberspace exists only because people have constructed it. you cannot escape that interaction of a community. no man is an island. what guarantees you will have a connection to the network today? absolutely nothing. it is just your faith in the great cybergods. cyberspace is nothing but crystallized human interaction. how do you deal with the `pathological' cases of human behavior such as harassment, terrorism, censorship, etc?
How the hell are you going to evict me if I break one of the laws? There is no way you can develop a fool-proof system to control use, I even seriously doubt you can install a shitty system even.
unix passwords represent a reasonable amount of security. they prevent me from hijacking your account. more sophisticated levels exist. look, you are evicted from your apartment if you don't pay your rent. it is just as simple to evict someone from their cyberspatial connection, and throw out all their furniture on the street!! believe me, it has happened to me twice!!
Basically if I want to do something, it will get done. The whole concept of a police force controlling cyberspace is a leap back about a billion evolution cycles. You can't patrol an amorphous blob.
don't think of it as `us vs. them'. think of it as `us' erecting our own framework of self-regulation. it would allow `us' to get rid of the detweilers of the world in our community. cyberspace is not an amorphous Gibsonian blob!! it is a physical infrastructure policed by humans as simply as our physical roads are!! the police already exist, they are called `system administrators', except they have no uniform code of conduct today, except `if something pisses me off, disconnect it'.
If they dont like what my node is doing, than cut connections to my node.
what if you wake up one day and find that all the people you want to talk to, and you thought were your friends, all on a separate network, and you are isolated with Detweiler, Depew, Morris, and Mitnick on the AnarchyNet?
I would actually prefer the possibility to Detwielering so to speak,than to allow someone to try and control this. If
hee, hee, suit yourself....
You are unable to hold someone accountable for their own deeds in a space like kyberspace where psuedonyms are part of the fabric of the space.
cyberspace is what we make it. if no name is ever connected to a human, it can be constructed that way. if identity is important (as most of human history seems to imply) we can translate it into the new realm. but you are continuously mixing up what is possible with what you want. if you don't want something that is possible, then it's possibility is irrelevant. why don't you just preface your remarks by saying `i only want a version of cyberspace where no one is responsible for their actions!!' and i'd just leave it alone. as it stands you argue that cyberspace = anarchy by definition. i cannot agree. this dialogue appears to be at the point of arguing two different religions, so it is not very fruitful for any of us, but if grand epopt feotus represents the basic cypherpunk views, then i find it all very fascinating. you guys realize that you have a very unusual culture that is highly distinct from virtually any other culture ... at least that i am aware of. you do seem to have some parallels to the russian nihilists, some of the libertarians, some of the anarchists, but you have a very distinct blend of it .... anyway, it is all kind of bizarrely alien to me, so maybe i will check out that cyberwonk group or whatever that eli brandt mentioned and see if anyone there is on the same wavelength. pseudonymously yours, --tmp